


lives ruined and blood shed (epic)

by devviepuu



Series: seeking an explanation for observed phenomena [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode 6x09 "Irreconcilable Differences", Episode 6x11 "We Fall", F/M, Post-Crisis On Earth-X Crossover Event (CW DC TV Universe), Queen Family (Arrow) Feels, Season/Series 06, Sorry Not Sorry, William Clayton (Arrow) & Felicity Smoak Bonding, but oliver gets his #dessert, not smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-04-13 21:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14121210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devviepuu/pseuds/devviepuu
Summary: She had already been his — his girl, he had used to call her.You will always be my girl, Felicity.And he had already been hers.Her Oliver.Not in spite of everything, but because of it.  All they had done was make it official.Probably.  She hoped.Frak, she had just jinxed it, hadn’t she?





	1. no one writes songs about the ones that come easy

**Author's Note:**

> this is either a sequel to "multiplicity" or a prequel to everything that comes after "crisis on earth-x" - YMMV. just one chapter for now.

**_i.  now life is like a song_ **

 

Felicity leaned up against Oliver, her thighs around his hips.  Her arms were wrapped around him, firm but relaxed, and they sped up the freeway heading north from Central City - and back home.

_ So, _ she thought to herself.   _ That happened. _

Oliver’s hand dropped to her knee, not for the first time.  Sometimes, in the quiet stretches of the road, she would rest her chin against his shoulder; sometimes, he would let his hand brush against her knee.  Like always with them, it wasn’t (precisely) a conscious action - the touching - but after the past two days (and the past six years) Felicity did not want to be so close to him and not feel that physical link between them.

Much easier to focus on that than all of the other things swirling around in her head, like  _ whose _ home, exactly, they were going to; it was only one of a million or so questions they hadn’t yet touched with a ten-foot pole, and, just like all of the others, it was one without an answer.  Not really. Because it wasn’t as if she’d ever (officially) moved in with Oliver (and William) but it was impossible to ignore the fact that half of her clothes were tucked away in Oliver’s closet instead of the walk-in at her loft.

When had she last slept at the loft, anyway?  Felicity tried to count the days in her mind and gave up, her mind already racing ahead to the next thing, because it was actually possible, she realized, that they weren’t legally married yet.  That thought brought along with it a rush of all of the old fear, and it washed through her as she wrapped herself more tightly around  _ her husband _ just to feel the push of their bodies against each other.  Not the everyday garden-variety total certainty that Oliver could be lost to her at any moment; that had been a part of her daily routine since she had first found Oliver bleeding out in the backseat of her car, and it was generally kept in control with mint chip ice cream and red wine and now, happily, excellent sex with her boyfriend --  _ husband _ \-- whatever-he-was --

_ Three, two, one. _  Felicity exhaled.  Her boyfriend had been kidnapped by Nazis from a parallel earth and survived; marrying the man she had loved since the first time he said her name was probably not going to bring on the apocalypse.

Probably.  She hoped.  _ Frak _ , she had just jinxed it, hadn’t she?

Felicity made a noise at the back of her throat, kind of a hum, to distract herself from the creeping dread and certainty that the other shoe would drop, that everything they had found would turn out to be precarious and fragile and illusory.   _ Happy stories _ , she admonished herself, focusing instead on that moment - that moment when she knew, just knew, that everything was going to be okay.  Not easy, never easy - nothing about this life she had chosen turned out to be easy - but okay. The minute  _ her _ Oliver had stopped Oliver-from-the-high-castle from shooting her, the second she ran into his arms and felt the press of his lips and the fabric of his mask against her skin; Iris and Caitlin and Cisco and the Legends taking down the shields on the Earth-X timeship (and seriously, where in the  _ frakking _ multiverse had they gotten a timeship from?  She was going to have to ask Barry to explain about Thawne and time remnants again) followed by a haze of heat and wet and bliss when it was finally all over and she had followed Oliver into one of the showers at S.T.A.R. Labs and told him, in the kind of words Felicity almost never used, exactly what she wanted him to do to her.

“Hey,” Oliver said, his voice coming through clearly on the comms they usually used when he was in the field.  “Talk to me, Felicity.”

“Huh?” she stuttered, startled halfway out of a reverie that involved Oliver running his soapy hands over her breasts, her belly, her back -- her arms pinned against the tile of the shower wall as Oliver buried his face in her neck -- her toes barely skimming the floor as he lifted her -- his body, layered over hers as the water and the sweat melted them together --

“I can practically hear,” he said, “your forehead doing that crinkly thing.”

For a minute Felicity considered giving him a rundown on exactly what kind of pornographic daydream he had interrupted, but decided to save it for when they got home (ugh, that tricky word again) and could re-enact it all over again.

Her silence seemed to send the wrong signal, though, because Oliver continued, “I know it was spur-of-the-moment, and I’m sorry.  Maybe I shouldn’t have asked at all--”

“Oliver,” she said, “I asked you.”  She tried to say it the way he always did when he wanted her to stop babbling, listen, and just believe him, making an entire sentence out of the familiar syllables of his name.  His hand on her knee again was a good start.

“Yeah,” he said.  “You did.” His voice was warm and sweet and Felicity felt whole.  She had thought she knew every way it was possible for her to lose him until he was taken right out of the world, like the universe was trying to prove to her that nothing was in her control no matter how hard she tried.  She had thought she didn’t want a marriage; the white dress and the bridal party and the circus, his mother’s diamonds and an engagement that reminded her of all of the reasons  _ why not _ .  Because at the end of the day, what she wanted?  Was him.  _ Always _ .

They had never stuck the landing last time because it was the fall that did them in.

Oliver’s hand was back on the handlebars and his voice had turned serious.  “I just don’t--” Oliver cut himself off and started again. “I just don’t want you to regret doing this.”

She had already been his - his girl, he had used to call her.   _ You will always be my girl, Felicity. _  And he had already been hers.   _ Her Oliver. _  Not in spite of everything, but because of it.  All they had done was make it official.

Sort of.  Maybe? She hoped.

But Felicity was pretty sure the only regret she would have about what they had done would be the groveling she would have to do to get back in Iris’s good graces.  Watching Barry and Iris finally say their vows, emotion spilling over into every word, couldn’t help but remind Felicity that Oliver had once stood with her under a chuppah, and said his vows  _ just like that _ \- like he meant them with every fiber of his being, like what he was feeling could not be contained - and Felicity had wanted, more than anything, to give that back to him.

Without the anticipation and the fear.  Without waiting for reality to crash in.  By finding another way.

“Oliver,” Felicity said, “no more regrets.  Not for you and me.”

Their lives wouldn’t suddenly be perfect - the looming trial date waiting for them in Star City was only one of many reminders - but there could be no question, for either of them, that they would do things together.

“Felicity--” there was a question in his voice, an uncertainty.  She rested her head, helmet and all, against his back.

“You seriously want to talk about this now and not, like, when we get home?”  Because, really, did it matter where “home” was as long as they were going there together?

“I have,” Oliver said, “other things I would really like to do when we get home.”  His voice was dead serious, but then he snorted, exhaling a laugh through his nostrils.

“Me, too,” Felicity said slyly.  “Food, for starters - I’ve barely eaten since the rehearsal dinner.  And speaking of regrets, do you ever think that maybe we shouldn’t go to Central City any more if Barry is the one doing the inviting?”

“All the time,” Oliver said with a sigh, his voice giving new meaning to the word deadpan.  “But you know Barry - he would just bring the trouble to us.”

 

**_ii.  but no one writes songs about the ones that come easy_ **

 

“You know,” Felicity gasped, trying to keep her voice even, “when I said we should talk after we got home this was not what I had in mind.”

After some discussion once they reached the exit for Star City, Oliver had headed for the loft, because, “You know what’s crazy?” Felicity had asked.  “Technically, we’re home early. Technically, no one is expecting us yet.”

“Raisa is with William tonight,” Oliver had said.  “Thea is scheduled to be released tomorrow. We can pick him up in the morning, visit with Thea and take her to her apartment.”

They were in the elevator before he hesitated.  “Maybe we should go home,” Oliver said, which at least answered the question of where ‘home’ was.

“Maybe we should,” Felicity conceded, “if that is what you think is best for William.  But at the risk of sounding like a wicked stepmother on my first day on the job--”

“Never,” Oliver protested, a bemused smirk on his face.

“Between your son, Thea, the team and the indictment looming over our heads, it’s not as if we’re heading for Aruba any time soon.  This might be the only honeymoon we get.”

“It’s already more of a honeymoon than I got on Nanda Parbat.”

Felicity scowled, because nothing would ever make that funny.  “Maybe,  _ husband _ , just this one time, we can be selfish.”

Oliver’s face had relaxed, his eyes focused only on her, an easy smile on his lips.  “Maybe we can,” he said, his voice quiet and pitched slightly higher than usual, before he picked her up and spun her so her back was pressed against the wall, her legs wrapping around him instinctively.  Felicity hadn’t even noticed when the elevator stopped at her floor, and he had carried her over the threshold just like that -- thank google for smart locks with proximity sensors, no matter what Alena said.

“Oliver--”

“Felicity,” he echoed, the sound almost a hum, “you were saying something about dinner?”

“I was actually thinking,” she said, moving her head to allow him better access to her neck and her collarbone, “that life is uncertain and we should have dessert first.”

Which had led them here, to the bed they used to share and which was now doubling as their honeymoon suite, where Oliver had dug his toes into the mattress, sprawled out on top of her, buried himself completely inside of her.  These were all excellent things, and then --

“I thought,” Oliver said casually, his voice even, “that now would be a good time to continue our conversation from earlier.”

Felicity struggled, attempting to gain purchase or find friction -- any or all of the things she could not do with Oliver on top of her and refusing to move.  Instead, he ducked his head and pressed kisses along the side of her face. It was the slightest touching of his beard against her skin, in contrast to the smoothness of his lips, and it shouldn’t have made her shiver but it did.

The sound coming out of Felicity’s mouth was long and slow and tortured and most closely resembled a groan.

“You’re so wet,” Oliver said appreciatively, pausing in his attention to her neck to move to the other side.”

“It’s a fairly common physical reaction to arousal, Oliver,” she muttered.  “I would think that  _ you _ of all people have seen it before--”

“I could stay like this forever,” he warned her, and there was that rumble in his voice that was barely concealing his amusement.  Felicity loved that sound. “I would think that you, of all people, have seen what the salmon ladder does for upper body strength--”

Felicity dropped her head to the pillow.  “Diabolical,” she sighed, almost to herself, only Oliver seemed amused all over again by the accusation and that was just too much for one woman to take -- that smile and the rumble and the fact that  _ he still refused to move _ .  Felicity wriggled, or tried to, and Oliver chuckled; she tried punching his shoulder but he didn’t even wince.

Fine.  Two could play this game.

“Do you think John told anyone?”

A beat, and then:  “What?”   
Felicity smiled.  That syllable, short and cut-off with just a hint of a question at the end, meant she’d caught him genuinely off-guard.  “The whole team is home by now,” she said patiently, “do you think John told them?”

Oliver sighed, his exhalation brushing against her cheek and making her shiver again.  “And she says I’m the one that’s evil.”

“Wait.”  Felicity’s mind was racing now.  “What are we going to tell William?  And Thea?” 

“Felicity--” Oliver tried to interrupt her, but she wasn’t even listening any more, and their game was nearly forgotten.

“Oh, my god, Oliver, we’re going to have to tell my mother - I don’t think she will ever forgive me if she has to see it in the paper again —“

He kissed her, for real this time, his tongue warm and strong and insistent, rolling his hips just enough to make her feel it, and she gasped, her attention entirely re-focused.

“Felicity,” he said firmly, and his voice was ragged and the sound meant  _ please stop talking right now _ .  “Can we not talk about my best friend, the team, my son, my sister, and your mother while we are in bed?  Because what I meant,” he said, canting his head and looking serious, “was that I would like to take a few minutes and talk about what changed your mind.”

Felicity had other things she wanted to do, and tried to remind him of that by kissing him:  long, slow, sweet, life-sustaining. Kissing Oliver was like coming up for oxygen after nearly drowning, and it was impossible not to put all of herself into it.

“Fe-li-ci-ty,” he murmured, undeterred.  “The truth, please.” And then moved again, letting her push her hips up, taking him a tiny bit deeper.

“A reception,” Felicity muttered.  “We’ll have to have a reception, otherwise most of our friends and family will probably never speak to us again.  And I should call a moving company. Also, are we even sure that we’re legally married? I bet there is paperwork we need to fill out.”

“I’m the mayor, Felicity,” Oliver said.  There was a small smile on his face and Felicity recognized the look that meant he was laughing at her and trying not to.  “I feel confident that I can make sure we are legally married.” He was teasing her with his lips and his tongue and his  _ frakking _ scruff and it was overwhelming; Felicity wasn’t sure if she was going to die from the excess of pleasure or from the lack of it.  And then -- he lowered his head to her breast, sucking on it so lightly that she kind of wanted to kill him but absolutely not before he finished what he had started.

“Honey,” she said, very innocently.  “If you do not let me come, I can assure you that Oliver Queen will not,” she paused for emphasis, “ _ get off _ .”  She worked her hand between them, dragging a finger up and down his sternum.  Felicity watched his eyes track her hand as it moved more closely to her breasts.

“I hate that Thea tells you things,” it was his turn to groan, and he thrust into her, giving in, pushing them both over the edge until he collapsed on top of her.  Felicity dragged her nails across his back, tracing the familiar pattern of criss-crossed scars by heart as her breathing and heartbeat started to normalize.

There were several minutes of comfortable silence, and then Oliver shifted, moving his weight off of her.  He propped himself on one elbow and suddenly all of his famous laser-focus was trained on her.

“I didn’t change my mind,” Felicity said softly.  “It’s more like I realized that there was no choice to make.”  Felicity took a deep breath, exhaled, closed her eyes. “Ever since we came back from Lian Yu, it’s like...I’ve been waiting for the next shoe to drop.  I love having this life. I love having this life with you. But we live with so much uncertainty, and every time it’s felt like you and I have found something…”  

The city lights streaming in through the loft’s windows provided more than enough illumination to see the tears in Oliver’s eyes.  Felicity reached up to cup his cheek in her palm, using her thumb to brush the streak of liquid from his face. “I didn’t want to tempt fate, Oliver.”

Oliver covered her hand with the one not holding his body upright.

“You told me once,” she said, “that the only way you knew how to fight the darkness was to be the darkness.  And after everything we’d been through, there was a time when I believed that was true. Until the bunker blew up and both of us almost died.  You know what I realized then?”

Oliver shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers.

“When we’re together, we can pull each other out of the darkness.”  Felicity pulled their hands from his face, twisting her palm and wrapping their fingers together.  “Together, we can be in the light. Because we both deserve it.”

It terrified her, the way she felt about him.  And it was the best part of her life.

“Always,” she whispered.  “Oliver, you are my always.  Being with you is everything I have always wanted.”  Felicity actually felt the impact of her words as they hit him; a shudder rolled through his body as he shut his eyes and took a deep breath.  One, two, three inhalations and then he looked at her.

“I learned the hard way,” Oliver said, “that the universe doesn’t owe me anything, and that people like me aren’t supposed to get happy endings.”  His voice was far away and wistful. “And maybe what I was trying to do was prove the universe wrong, until I realized that everything I thought I wanted we already have.  Felicity--” Now it was his quiet voice, low and still except for the emotions bleeding in on the edge, insistent and serious. “Coming home to you was more important than any piece of paper ever could be.  Being with you is everything I’ve always wanted, too.”

Felicity pressed her palms against his chest, moving with him until he was on his back and she was perched on top of him.  She tucked her hair behind her ears and leaned forward, her lips almost touching his ear. “The thing I’ve realized about happy endings,” she said, “is that they aren’t always what you think they will be.”

“You’re my happy ending,” Oliver said simply.  “This is my happy story."

 

**_iii.  and i still wake up; i still see your ghost_ **

 

Oliver slept, sated and spent.

Sleeping was, for most people, a necessary bodily function that evolution couldn’t quite explain, which had always made Felicity wonder why movies and TV made it look mesmerizing instead of creepy for people to watch their partners sleep.  Especially considering that most of the time, it was some emotionally unavailable dude who thought stalking and watching meant true love. Watching Oliver had changed her mind; it was intimate and private in a way that seemed unique and just for the two of them.  To begin with, Oliver was beautiful even when he slept, which seemed unfair until one considered how rarely he actually did, in fact, sleep — fully, completely sleep, his face totally relaxed and devoid of all tension. Felicity had known him for more than three years before she had seen him like that. 

It had been either very late at night or very early in the morning the first time Felicity realized that he actually seemed more at ease when she had seen unconscious on the metal table in the foundry than when she had seen him perched on his cot or dozing in a chair, and in the newness of everything they were it had almost made her cry.  The sight of Oliver, starfished out on their bed by the beach with the ocean crashing in through the open windows — there hadn’t been any other way to interpret that than as a sign of his complete and total trust in her, and in them. 

Watching Oliver start to sprawl on the bed in their former home on their wedding night, Felicity’s heart hurt, but she did not cry.  She had seen his sigh of relief and his total surrender when he had hit the mattress on that first night together back in October, and she had cried then, wondering how often he had slept at all in the nearly two years they had been apart.  Tonight, she merely took it for the affirmation that it was, sipping a glass of water as she stood leaning against the railing separating the bedroom from the rest of the apartment and enjoying the breathtaking view of her husband hogging the blankets, the lights from the city casting intriguing shadows over his back and his ass.

All of which was by way of saying that when she saw him curl up on himself and start to shake, she recognized it as the onset of a nightmare.  Oliver had had them with disturbing frequency in their first month or two together - everything from remnants of his fight with Ra’s or his time in Nanda Parbat, which seemed to be the most common, to the more distant terrors that had plagued him in his time away.  Sometimes, Oliver told her what he was dreaming about; more often he didn’t, but the only thing important to Felicity was that he felt safe in the bed they shared. Sometimes he called out her name - other times it was Laurel, or Sara, or Shado, or Thea or Moira or any of a variety of names that were still mysteries to her - but Felicity did her best to make sure she was always the first thing he saw when he woke up, and gradually the dreams had become less and less common.

Oliver had not dreamed like this since they had gotten back together, though.  Felicity walked quickly over to his side of the bed, placing her water glass on the table, and took his hand.  When his eyes opened, his pupils were wide and dark and dilated and when he focused on her, Felicity could swear she felt it as tangibly as if he had touched her.

“Felicity —“ her name came out as a gasp as he sat up suddenly, breathing heavily.  He swallowed and Felicity watched him work to slow his breathing and his heart rate using a technique he said Shado had taught him; it reminded Felicity of the pattern of inhalation and exhalation she had learned in her yoga classes in college.  When it seemed like it was starting to work, Felicity reached out and put her hand on his chest, matching the pattern of his breathing with her own. Oliver drew his knees up and leaned back against the headboard, scrubbing one hand down his face and pulling her back onto the bed with the other.

There was nothing graceful about the way she clambered over the bed, but she got herself against his side so she could rub a hand across his back and grasp his bicep, slowly coaxing him to lay back down.  His head ended up in her lap, one of his hands draped across her thigh as she stroked his hair. They sat like that for several minutes before Felicity twisted, reaching across to her nightstand for her tablet.

Oliver huffed out a laugh when she rested the tablet in front of them, a Rockets game from earlier in the week queued up and ready to play, but said nothing.  Felicity kept stroking his hair and gradually his breathing settled; she was almost starting to doze when the scruff of his beard scraped lightly against her as he kissed the skin near her knee.

_ I’m sorry _ , the kiss said, because she had once told him that he never needed to apologize for his nightmares, and this had been their compromise.  Oliver took a deep breath and then he spoke: “For the record,” he said, “I still hate that you have to see me like this.”

Six years home, more than ten years since he had left, and Oliver could still only see the damage.  Felicity could trace every scar on his body almost from memory, seeing all of the places where he had pulled himself back together; every mark testified to the choices he had made, for better and for worse, to walk through hell and back again and to survive.  “For the record,” she said, lowering her voice in her Oliver impression, “I don’t care.” Felicity mussed up his hair a little bit and said, “Let me be strong for you, Oliver.”

It was not the first or the second or even the hundredth time she had said that to him, but it had never provoked this kind of reaction before - Oliver stiffened all over for just a minute and then visibly forced himself to relax again, dragging his hand up and down her leg.  Felicity felt each inhale and exhale against her skin and when he spoke again, it was a whisper. “It’s the strong’s duty to protect the weak.”

He said it with the kind of conviction that meant there was a story there - that it was a quote or a trigger or a memory from something Felicity was not and might never be privy to.  Felicity didn’t ask; she never did. “Not weak,” she said instead. “Living like this is not for the weak.”

“Prochnost,” she thought she heard him say, and there was another kiss on her knee:   _ I’m sorry _ , he repeated.  Oliver’s hand on her leg gradually began to slow, and then it stilled, and his breathing became slow and even.  His upper body was still half-draped across her lap, his legs were slack against the mattress. Felicity twined her fingers with his, leaned back against the pillows, and closed her eyes, the faded and forgotten sound of the Rockets game accompanying them as they slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oliver's...strategy with felicity was inspired by _a gentleman in the street_ by alisha rai. for those of you who love a good steamy fic and are open to something longer and not fandom-based, i cannot recommend "a gentleman in the street" highly enough. contemporary erotic romance at the top of its game, feminist, sex-positive and steamy AF.
> 
> felicity's comment about female arousal is borrowed from _a princess in theory_ by alyssa cole.
> 
> \--
> 
> _"and life is like a song"_  
>  etta james, "at last"
> 
> _"no one writes songs about the ones that come easy"_  
>  logan echolls, S02E20 "look who's stalking", veronica mars
> 
> _"i still wake up, i still see your ghost"_  
>  fun., "some nights"


	2. i hear the bells

**_i. ringing_ **

 

Thea screamed.  

“Ollie!”  Only she dragged out the syllables so it sounded like “Ahh-leeeeee,” and Felicity didn’t even try not to laugh; it was the youngest her sister-in-law had looked, and the most care-free she had sounded, in five years.

“So much for the man who keeps secrets for a living,” Oliver said, but he was smiling as he did it, opening his arms to pull Thea into a full-body hug as she leapt up to meet them.  It was amazing to see Thea not only on her feet again but walking unaided.

“Hey, sis,” Felicity said when it was her turn, and the noise Thea made in response could only be described as a song with the beats of her name turned into the lyrics.

“Don’t mess this up, Ollie,” Thea warned.  “I like her, and you deserve to be happy.”

“I am happy,” Oliver said.  “Very much so.”

“So, not to interrupt your stupid, sappy brother,” Felicity interrupted, “but is there anything to eat around here?  I’m still starving after everything we did this weekend.”

“Gross, Felicity,” Thea groaned.

“What?” Felicity looked around to see Oliver trying not to laugh and William looking the slightest bit bewildered.  “No, I meant, like, the drive home and stuff.”

Oliver and Thea, still trying to be serious, made eye contact and started laughing at the exact same time.

“Oh my god,” Felicity said, blushing.  “Why do I ever talk to people?”

“You guys are both idiots,” Thea said, “and it’s about damn time.” She was crying a little bit as she said it.  “Now get out of my way so I can properly greet my nephew, who at least came to visit me while you were off wining and dining _and getting married_  in Central City.”

Felicity sputtered, because _Nazis_ , and Oliver mumbled something Russian and foul-sounding under his breath.

“You’re just hoping Raisa packed breakfast for you,” William said, but he smiled when it was his turn for a hug.

“Did Raisa pack breakfast for me?” Thea demanded immediately after she released him.

“Yes, Auntie Thea.”

“And Raisa cooked it, right, not Felicity?”

“Hey,” Felicity protested, though it was feeble at best, and she was not going to mention the fact that they hadn’t slept at Ol--at _home_ last night.

“Raisa always cooks,” Oliver reassured his sister.

“Only sometimes,” William said nervously, as if he was revealing a great secret, “Felicity and I have ice cream for dinner.  Like when Dad has to work late.”

“Spooning ice cream into a bowl,” Oliver said, smiling at his son, “is one of the few kitchen tasks Felicity can handle.”

“Who says we eat it out of a bowl?” Felicity demanded, because opening wine bottles was probably not a skill it was appropriate to mention in front of her stepson.  That seemed like basic parenting, right there.

Thea’s eyes were wide as she took in the domestic scene playing out in front of her, her head cocked at an insouciant angle, her arms crossed and her weight leaning on her back foot.  “ _Dad?_ ” she mouthed at Oliver, who grinned stupidly and nodded over William’s head.

“Is this party family-only?” came a gruff voice from the doorway, where Quentin Lance stood watching them.  It was hard to tell with him, but Felicity thought he looked pleased, and when he and Oliver made eye contact Quentin’s face relaxed into that sheepish grimace that was the closest he ever got to a smile.

“Quentin,” Oliver said, “you are family.”  

Thea mussed up William’s hair a little bit as she stepped forward and, in a maneuver straight out of her brother’s playbook, pulled Quentin into a hug.  He looked surprised, and then pleased; there was the briefest hesitation before he wrapped his arms around Thea.

“Ms. Smoak,” Quentin said with a nod and the slightest hint of a twinkle in his eye.

“Hi, Detective,” Felicity smiled nervously, because -- Ms. Smoak?  Mrs. Queen? Ms. Smoak-Queen? Was she the kind of woman who would hyphenate?  Felicity always thought she was the kind of woman who would--

“Actually, Quentin, you may need to fire up your press shop and get Rene going,” Thea said, interrupting the runaway train in Felicity’s head.  “These two idiots finally tied the knot.” She gestured at her brother and sister-in-law. “In Central City over the weekend.”

“Central City, huh?  How’s the Allen kid?”

“He’s--” Felicity began, and then paused, totally at a loss for words.

“We happened to be visiting for Barry’s wedding,” Oliver finished for her.  “We took it as a kind of inspiration.”

(But seriously, Felicity wondered, how on Earth-X were they going to explain _anything_ about Barry’s wedding?  To anyone?)

“Wow,” Quentin said in that understated way of his.  “She must really believe in you.”

It was not, Felicity knew, the first time he had said that.

“She knows me,” Oliver said softly.  “Better than -- anybody.”

Quentin looked down at his hands, seemingly unable to make eye contact.  “Laurel would be happy for you.”

“I think she would,” Oliver agreed.  “Thank you, Quentin.” Quentin looked back up and the two men stared at each other for a minute.  It was an uncomfortable minute, somehow happy and sad at the same time. Felicity knew that Quentin and Oliver were, in some ways, more tied together than parent and child.  There was still so much between them and Felicity could swear, just for a second, that she saw tears in Quentin’s eyes. Something passed unspoken and Oliver nodded, offering his hand.

Quentin took it.

“Someday, kid,” he said, turning to William, “I will tell you all of the grief your old man here used to give me.  Think of it as a -- how- _not_ -to manual.”  Quentin winked.  “Congratulations again, Ms. Smoak.  Mister Mayor.”

He turned to go, and Oliver went to follow him out; William excused himself to use the restroom, and barely two seconds went by before Thea lowered her voice and demanded, “So, are you going to tell me?”

“Tell you--”

“Felicity.” Thea made the word an entire sentence, just like her brother did, and it was almost as easy to decipher:   _Duh._  “Barry always brings trouble.  Last time it was aliens. Explain to me how aliens is not the weirdest thing ever to happen because _Nazis kidnapped my brother_.”

Felicity was momentarily speechless, prompting Thea to smirk.  “What?” she said. “I do have my sources.”

“It was worse than aliens,” Felicity admitted.  “So much worse.” The knife against her throat and the arrow pointed directly at her and Tommy Merlyn, evil now but dead all over again and Oliver--

“But you all,” Thea paused.  “I mean, Team Arrow saves the day, right?  And everyone’s fine?”

“Not everyone,” Felicity said.  “We lost Professor Stein.”

Thea’s face fell; they had all seen too many casualties to take loss lightly.  “He seemed so sweet, though.”

“Oliver wouldn’t be here without him,” Felicity confirmed.  “He was a true hero -- a true Legend. He helped to save all of us and sacrificed himself.”

“Oh my god,” Thea whispered, horrified.

Felicity stepped forward, because it was definitely Thea’s turn for a hug.  She grabbed her sister and held her close. Thea’s body shuddered for just a moment before she breathed in what sounded like a sigh of relief.

“Maybe you guys shouldn’t go to Central City any more,” Felicity barely heard Thea’s voice muffled against her shoulder.

“Oliver and I had the same thought,” Felicity confirmed as Thea straightened up and walked back to sit on her bed.

“But getting back to the good news,” Thea said brightly, turning on a dime in that way she had, “have you had a chance to tell Roy?”

“I left messages,” Felicity said, “in some of our usual places, but I haven’t spoken to him yet.”

“He’ll be so happy for you two,” Thea said, her voice wistful and a far away look in her eyes.

“If by ‘happy’, you mean thrilled that he won’t have to mediate our relationship long-distance any more, you’re probably right,” Felicity conceded.

Thea snorted.  “True, but he loves you.  And he worships Ollie. He’ll be happy.”

Felicity smiled and put her hand on Thea’s shoulder.  “I’m sure you’re right.”

Oliver appeared in the doorway with William in tow.  “What is Thea right about?”

“Felicity and I,” Thea said with a significant look at Felicity, “were taking bets on how lame the newspaper stories would be.  I can see the headline now: Queen finds his consort!”

It was so bad, and so likely to be true, that Felicity groaned out loud, prompting Thea to continue:  “You’d better hope Rene and his ‘poetic soul’ come up with something better for the press releases. And you know I’m totally planning you a reception, right?  Queens,” she said, turning to William as if to explain, “know how to throw a party.”

“That sounds really fun, Auntie Thea,” William said, and he looked as though he meant it, which made Oliver smile all over again while Felicity brushed back a fresh set of tears.

“And you, Felicity, don’t even think about going dress shopping without me.”

 

_**ii.  joyful** _

 

Donna shrieked.  “Felicity, my baby girl!”

Felicity held her phone a good six inches from her ear and winced.

“Honey,” her mother gushed, “I am so happy for you!”

Felicity waited a moment, counting silently in her head -- _one, two, three_ …

“But was it really too much for me to hope that you could at least wait until your mother could be there?”

“Mom, it wasn’t--”

“And what is my rabbi going to say?”

“Mother, you haven’t been to synagogue in--”

“No _chuppah_ , no _ketubah_ , and I don’t even want to know what you were wearing!”

“Mom, Oliver and I weren’t going to sit and negotiate how many cows I am worth--”

“Do I at least get to see you in a wedding dress?”

“You’ll have to discuss that with Thea--”

“And you’ll send me a picture of the ring, obviously.”

Felicity took a deep breath and looked silently at her nonexistent ring just as Oliver came up behind her and wrapped his hand around her fourth finger.

“Where’s Oliver?  I want to talk to my son-in-law.”

Felicity pulled her hand free of his so she could cover the microphone and whisper.  “My mom, just being, you know, my mom.”

Oliver chuckled right against her ear, which did things to her that were definitely not appropriate while on the phone with her mother, and took the phone.

“Hi Donna,” Oliver said, his voice light and smooth and a ridiculous grin on his face.  “Yes, thank you, I am really excited about it also.”

There was a pause and he laughed.  “It was a bit spontaneous. We got caught up in the moment...I didn’t plan on asking, not that it mattered, because she said no when I did.”

Felicity hissed, “ _Oliver_.  Do not say that to my mother.”

But Oliver wasn’t listening to her, he was listening to Donna.  “She asked me, actually,” he continued, and the look in his eyes as he said it did more things to her that made Donna’s proximity--even just over the phone--unwelcome.

“Yes,” he said.  “It was very romantic, I promise.”  He reached out to take her hand again, running the tip of his finger against her palm.  Something in the light made his eyes seem even more blue than usual and Felicity’s head was spinning almost like the time when John had given her the special aspirin.  She stepped closer and rested her chin against his shoulder, wrapping her free hand around him and dragging it just under the hem of the old henley he had thrown on when they had left the loft and gone to pick up Thea.  His skin was warm and and she felt his muscles ripple as he reacted to her touch.

“I’m sorry, Donna, can you repeat that?” Oliver said, and suddenly his voice wasn’t that smooth any more.  “Yes, my sister Thea is going to throw us a reception. Of course we all want you to be here and celebrate with us.”

Felicity started tracing the scar that scraped across his abdomen and Oliver made a strangled kind of noise.  “Donna?” he said, and it was urgent and pleading. “Can we call you back?”

It wasn’t a shriek this time, it was a squeal, and Felicity heard it loud and clear when Oliver pulled the phone away from his ear.  “Of course!” her mother exclaimed. “Honeymoon sex is the best kind. Call me later, sweetheart.”

Felicity collapsed onto Oliver’s chest in a combination of relief and embarrassment, turning her head to the side so her ear was pressed against his heart.  Oliver exhaled, the sound conveying his amusement.

“Your mom,” he repeated, “just being, you know, your mom.”

“Your mom, too,” Felicity reminded him.  “At least now I have someone to share the burden with.”  Felicity started to pull away, but he caught her hand.

“Felicity?” _Talk to me._

“Oliver,” she said, “she asked me about my ring.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding his head in a show of patience.

“I don’t want a ring,” Felicity said.  

“I know,” Oliver said.

“It’s just --” Felicity ran right over him, “I know we did the whole ring thing last time, and it was sparkly and gorgeous and could sink the _Titanic_ , but this isn’t last time, we found another way, and the thought of the constant reminder all the time with the sparkling and the hugeness--”  she paused, registering his answer. “You know.” She made it a statement, not a question.

“I know,” he repeated, “that you don’t want a diamond ring.  But--”

“But?”

“But I do want a ring.  A wedding ring. I want the reminder, every time I look down, that I have someone to come home to.  That I belong to somebody.”

“ _Ani l’dodi--_ ” Felicity recited.

“And my beloved is mine,” Oliver finished.  “ _Basheret._ ”  He leaned down just a bit, enough to kiss her forehead, before leaning down farther and kissing her on her mouth.  In all of the hundreds or thousands of times Oliver had kissed her, one thing was always the same -- he kissed her like he was drowning, and she was oxygen.  Oliver kissed with his whole body and his entire being.

Every time.

Maybe, Felicity thought some time later, maybe her mother wasn’t wrong about _everything_.

 

_**iii.  triumphant** _

 

Curtis _cackled_.  

It was a truly obscene sound, and he accompanied it with a kind of victory dance that just served as a reminder that dancing definitely wasn’t one of the decathlon events.

“Girl!” He yelled, holding a hand up for a high five as Felicity’s heels clicked on the bunker’s cement floor.  “Look who got her man!”

Felicity ignored him and further ignored his request not to “leave him hanging” and muttered in Rene’s general direction.  “Is there anyone John didn’t tell?”

“Oh, John didn’t tell me,” Curtis said, hanging his hand on the back of his neck like he had meant for it to be there the entire time.  “Rene did. Got the news from Thea.”

“Rene?” Felicity was confused.   “From _Thea_?”

“I had...an appointment this morning near the hospital,” Rene said, defensive and blushing slightly.  “And I knew she was going home today.”

Curtis was still talking.  “Thank goodness you guys are having a real reception, though, because I was starting to worry I would never be able to use the toast I’ve been working on.”  He gave an exaggerated sigh of relief. “The stories I could tell…”

“Please,” Dinah said seriously.  “No stories. No stories, Curtis.”

“Stories, right,” Felicity said.  “Exactly which stories were you planning on telling, in public, without ending up indicted as a co-conspirator right alongside _my husband_?  The time you met Oliver and helped him break into a highly secure research facility?  The time you stumbled into the Green Arrow’s secret lair while you were high on flu meds?  When you joined a team of vigilantes?  And let’s not forget the time you made Oliver pick up your take-out dinner and--”

“Oh, yes, let’s definitely not forget _that_ time,” Curtis said, his eyes widening.  “Because you never did tell me--.”

“And we never will,” Oliver said emphatically, coming in to the bunker from the garage side.

“--Or were you just planning on making a full confession to the FBI?” Felicity finished.  Rene, she noticed, looked slightly uncomfortable during this recitation. She took a deep breath, closed her, eyes, shook her head:   _three, two, one_.  “Sorry, you two.  And Dinah. That was a little…”

“Harsh,” Curtis said, nodding enthusiastically.  “Definitely harsh.”

“There’s kind of a lot going on up here,” Felicity said, gesturing near her head.  Oliver grabbed her hand and pulled it down along his side.

“Congratulations, both of you,” Rene said.  There was no irony twisting his voice, just honest sincerity, and was there something in his eye?  He held out a hand and Oliver dropped hers to shake it.

“Thank you, Rene,” Oliver said.  

Dinah stepped forward, giving Oliver a kiss on the cheek and squeezing Felicity’s hand.  “It’s great news.”

Curtis chimed in.  “Seriously, so happy for you guys,” he said, holding up a hand again.  Oliver didn’t even have to refuse him; all it took was a look, as if only his patience and good will kept him from putting Curtis down on the spot.  “Champagne?” Curtis suggested, using the hand already in the air to point toward the case they kept in the garage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "i hear the bells"
> 
> i'm  
> calling to you  
> throughout the world and  
> well, i can  
> hear the bells are ringing,  
> joyful and triumphant
> 
> \-- mike doughty


	3. the best chrismukkah ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post 6x09, "Irreconcilable Differences"

**_i.  curse the darkness_ **

  

Two days past her wedding reception, and Felicity still hadn't slept.  Not even for any of the good, old-fashioned, time-honored post-nuptial reasons, either, but for betrayal and total, cataclysmic failure.  Being the wife of the Green Arrow apparently had no perks whatsoever - who knew? - and Felicity was worried she would have to get used to it, and quickly.

The all-nighters, at least, and not the betrayal.  Or the failure. 

At least, when Oliver finally brought her home after almost two straight days in the bunker - two days that were meant to be a mini-honeymoon while Thea took William - Felicity knew she wouldn't have to resign herself to celibacy on top of everything else.  Oliver followed her right into the shower and shattered her up against the tile wall, protecting her from the stream of water with his body while they lost themselves in the need to reassure each other that together, they could find a way out of this.  It broke the tension, even if it wasn't going to help her sleep.

Okay, so there were some perks.

Oliver wrapped her in a towel and carried her back to bed, the silence thick but comfortable between them.  He knelt in front of her and rubbed his hands up and down her arms as if she was a small child in need of warming, and it should have been ridiculous instead of romantic and comforting.  Felicity smiled at him, content and relaxed, and he pressed a kiss against her forehead before turning back to his closet to pull out a pair of sneakers, sweatpants and a t-shirt.  Oliver dressed quickly and was on the verge of leaving when he turned back to his nightstand, opened a black box he had left there, and pulled out a simple stainless steel watch. 

"Love you," he said quietly as he fastened the watch on his wrist, "back soon," and he closed the bedroom door behind him as he left.

A quick glance at the clock showed that Oliver would only just have time to finish a run before Thea deposited William at their door, dressed and ready for school.  It would have been easier for Thea to take him straight there, but Oliver refused to relinquish his insistence that William have a proper breakfast before leaving the house.  Thea knew, and so did Felicity, that what Oliver was protecting was the father-and-son ritual they had developed, Oliver scrambling eggs that William didn't even have time to eat most days as he pored over his homework, intent on making sure everything was perfect.   Felicity could, and did, help with the homework, but left everything else to Oliver.

It still took her breath away, how they had gone from sex-on-the-kitchen-counter omelettes to helping-their-son-with-homework omelettes.  Never mind that it had taken two  _frakking_ , frustrating years -- they had gotten here, and Felicity was not going to let Cayden James threaten that if she could stop it.  Especially not when he was her mistake and not Oliver's.  Felicity was determined to spend the morning developing the search parameters she would need to track him down so that she could send some ideas to Alena for further work.

And then her phone pinged.

And pinged.

And  _pinged_.

 

 **_Queen Takes a Consort_ ** **  
** **Star City has a new First Lady** **  
** **Channel 52**

_The Office of the Mayor recently confirmed that Mayor Oliver Queen, 32, and Felicity Smoak, 27, married in a private ceremony in November while on a weekend getaway to Central City…_

_...Ms. Smoak, already a familiar figure in Star City as the CEO of PalmerTech as well as a prominent backer of Queen’s original bid for mayor, was previously engaged to Mayor Queen in 2016 following a proposal at the annual City Christmas Tree Lighting moments before a terrorist attack that left Smoak in a wheelchair for several months…_

_...rumors had been swirling as the couple were both sporting silver rings in recent weeks and celebrated in a private reception on Thursday night, according to Chief of Staff Rene Ramirez..._

_...unclear what impact this may or may not have on the pending federal charges levied against Queen in early November...the judge may not compel Ms. Smoak to testify in any matters pertaining to her husband..._

 

 **_Mayor Handsome’s New Wife -- She’s ‘Smoaking’ Hot_  
** **Office of the Mayor confirms Queen’s wedding to longtime off-and-on girlfriend, Felicity Smoak** **  
** **Star City Star**

_...Queen, 32, and Smoak, 27, have a history dating back to Queen’s troubled tenure at the helm of Queen Consolidated...reportedly introduced in 2012 by then-CEO Walter Steele and dogged by rumors about the nature of their relationship until Queen’s ouster in 2014…_

_...Smoak was a frequent fixture at Queen’s Glades hotspot, Verdant, often in the company of Queen and best friend Tommy Merlyn prior to his death in 2013…_

_...engagement called off two years ago and the pair were not seen together publicly again until this past summer, when they were spotted sharing a moment outside Starling General Hospital…_

 

 **First Lady Style - Star City’s Felicity Smoak** **  
** **Tom and Lorenzo**

 _...It is now official:  Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak are the most glamorous couple in the history of municipal government (don’t @ us, kittens)..._ _  
_ _...are we gushing?  You bet your ass we are.  While he looks good in everything, (and probably nothing, too -- don’t pretend you weren’t thinking the same thing) Felicity Smoak has been a continuous bright spot on the papp circuit in the years since she was seen first with Queen, then PalmerTech genius Ray Palmer, and again with Queen..._

_...femine..._

_...bold…_

_...stylish…_

_...provocative…_

_...powerful…_

_...those heels!..._

 

 **Explainer:  Mayor Oliver Queen’s Impending Trial, His Marriage, and the Question of Marital Privilege** **  
** **VOX**

 

 **_Ramirez Resigns_ ** **_  
_ ** **Star City Business News**

_Star City Mayor’s Chief of Staff Rene Ramirez announced his resignation from the Office of the Mayor today after regaining custody of his only daughter in a prolonged battle with the court…_

_…”We wish him the best,” said Deputy Mayor Quentin Lance, who declined to give any further statement…_

 

Curtis arrived at the loft with concept drawings for John's implant and Felicity was Not In The Mood; she was exhausted, furious and distracted.  The morning had been lost to headline after headline, Felicity as hypnotized as if she was watching a train wreck in slow motion.  She was also nervous, because while she was glad that Curtis hadn't called off their partnership, there was no telling what this first post-Team-Arrow meeting might bring.

Especially when Curtis walked in already muttering to himself.

It wasn't the typical easy patter they had developed over the past years of working together, listening to each other babble, filtering through each other's ideas, laughing at the other's bad pop-culture jokes.  If Felicity was being honest with herself, that had  been dissolving slowly since Oliver's indictment.  And while she was being honest, she may as well admit that she missed it - desperately.  Curtis was more than a teammate and a partner, he was her best friend, a presence in her life unlike any she had had since Sara died and Roy left.

And, friendship forged through a crucible of identity or not, neither of them had gotten her  _Battlestar Galactica_ references.

But something else she had learned in years of working with Curtis:  when he felt backed into a corner, he lashed out.

“When Oliver said ‘jump,’” Curtis was asking, venom dripping through every syllable, “did you even ask ‘how high’?  Or was there just an understanding that you would achieve max verticality?”

Whatever small sliver of hope Felicity had been harboring, that she and Curtis could reclaim some portion of their working partnership without Team Arrow in the way, vanished.  It took every measure of calm and fortitude she had not to lash out in return - to not scream things right back in his face.

 _What did you think I was going to do?_ Felicity did not say.   _What did you think Oliver was going to do?  You’re the genius who used to remind me that ‘Oliver Queen doesn’t play well with others.’  You’re the one who begged Oliver for training, knowing what he was like._

Felicity did not yell at the top of her voice about how _This was the second time Rene had turned on them and now you are blaming Oliver for a lack of trust_ or why on earth Curtis would be so naive to think that Felicity wouldn’t have designed systems for exactly this contingency after Evelyn Sharpe had informed on them to Prometheus _and gotten Billy Malone killed_.

Didn’t Curtis know her at all?  Had he not seen what last year, what losing Billy, had done to her?

That was what really got to her -- that Curtis would actually think that Oliver could give her an order and she would follow it, no questions asked.  Felicity hadn’t done that for Oliver since the day he had walked into her cubicle at QC and lied right to her face; she damn well wasn’t going to do it when his life and safety, to say nothing of the life and safety of his son, were on the line when Rene exposed his identity.  Who even knew, at this point, who James was working with, or how far his reach extended?

Just thinking about the toast Rene had made, so completely sincere, every word heartfelt and so completely unlike Rene in its honesty, made Felicity want to cry or scream.  Since she could do neither of those things, Felicity just stewed, silently, watching Curtis vent as he paced around the loft, instead of hurling accusations in her loud voice about Rene and _why in the heck couldn’t Rene, just once, have actually done what he had been asked to do while out in the field so that they could all remember why they had become a team in the first place_ ?  How in the _frakking_ universe could Curtis stand there, in her loft, with a straight face and yell at her about betrayal when Rene had turned on _all of them_?  Twice!

Meanwhile, the computer kept  _pinging_ soft reminders of incoming headlines now that she and Oliver had officially confirmed the reports of their marriage.  Though the timing seemed particularly awful at this exact moment, the idea of delaying a statement until after their reception had made sense when Thea had suggested it, getting official buy-in from Quentin and Rene by reminding them that a portrait taken at the party would be better news fodder than some papp shot stolen off the street.

"And it will be a great distraction, too," Thea had insisted, waving her hand confidently as she leaned back in her chair.  "Get everyone's mind off of all of Ollie's other shit and focus on, like, the one good thing he's ever done."

Oliver had stuck his tongue out at her, and everyone had laughed, and it really had seemed like a good idea at the time.  But now Felicity could only pray that the camera-wielding stalkers were not going after her stepson today, on top of everything else.  Oliver did not need to be arrested all over again for assault and battery and destruction of property.

The noises erupting from the computer workstation had finally gotten to Curtis, and he muttered under his breath as he walked to the screen to see what was making the racket, standing behind her as Felicity took in the latest headline to bounce through her news alert.

 

 **_Monarchy Isn’t Dead - It Just Changed ZIP Codes:_ ** **_  
_** **And I’ve got all the deets on Star City’s New Queen…** **  
** **Gossip Girl:  Star City**

_...rumors peg HRH aspiring to the throne as early as 2012, where she reportedly “fixed the Wi-Fi” for club-owning Ollie and BFF Tommy Merlyn on a regular basis in the glory days at Verdant.  Spotty Wi-Fi at the local hot spot? Call it whatever helps you sleep at night, Your Highness, though with Ollie Queen keeping the bed warm, why would you even bother trying?_

 

“Oh, my god,” Curtis whispered, stopping his tirade at last.  “Felicity --”

“Don’t,” she said, and she was almost successful in not snapping at him when she said it.

 

 _Ping_.

 

 **_CCPD Forensic Specialist Arrested for Murder_ ** **_  
_ ** **Central City Picture News**

_Police arrested forensic analyst Barry Allen, 29, for the murder of Clifford DeVoe in his home in Central City..._

 

“Oh, my god,” they whispered in unison.

“Felicity--” Curtis tried again, but Felicity was already reaching for her phone.  

“Now now, Curtis,” she said.  “I’ve got to call Cisco.” And fought the urge to make a sarcastic comment about Team Arrow business, because this was Barry and he was too important.  Felicity took a deep breath and looked at her (former?) friend. “Curtis, just -- go, please. We’ll try again -- with all of this -- later.”

And maybe there was a hint of a question in her voice, that last little bit of hope she couldn’t let go of, because Curtis answered.

“Yeah,” he said, and the venom was gone but there was still hesitation.  “Okay.”

“Promise?” Felicity couldn’t help ask as he opened the front door.

“Yeah,” Curtis said again.  “I promise, Felicity.”

 

_**ii.  or light a candle** _

 

It's not like Chanukah was a particularly meaningful or important holiday, Felicity kept reminding herself as she unpacked her old grade-school menorah for her new mantle in her new home, it was just conveniently located around the yuletide season and let kids like her feel like they fit in while everyone around them celebrated something.  But it was William's first Chanukah, and Felicity wanted to share that with him, share a holiday that might not be overshadowed by memories of his mother and instead create something new.  There was something undeniably comforting about the small candles lit up in the window on a dark winter's night, and Felicity wanted William to feel that, to know that even with his mother gone he still had people who loved him.

Truthfully, Felicity wanted to feel that too, because the past several years' worth of holidays -- well, to say that they had gone poorly would be sort of like the time Oliver had gotten his knee bent back the wrong way and shattered and said he was fine even as she was pumping him full of lidocaine.

Last year, there had been Evelyn's betrayal and Black Siren's attack and Billy Malone's funeral.  And the year before that, okay, there had been a holiday party and a proposal, but there had also been a kidnapping and a terrorist attack that left her waking up in a hospital, alone, facing the beginning of the end of the life she thought she had with Oliver.  And before  _that_ had been the year that Oliver had been dead.  Not, like,  _dead_ dead but they had thought he had been dead -- before that was Barry, which was a bright spot for a nanosecond until she had spent her holiday in the hospital sitting vigil over her comatose friend, and now Barry was in jail on murder charges with a trial date looming...

 _Three, two, one_.  Deep breath. 

It was their first holiday as a family, and whether it was a big holiday or a small one they were going to mark the occasion.

Which was what she ended up telling Oliver when asking his opinion got them nowhere.  

"To be honest," Oliver said, hesitating, "in the past eleven years there's only been one Christmas that was looking up for me, and it pretty much went completely to shit."

Felicity's eyes closed as she tried not to remember, tightening her hold on his fingers where they were intertwined and draped along the back of the couch -- because, yeah, what he said.  And she responded by climbing on top of him, her knees bracketing his waist, because at least that was a thing she could do now, again, and if they were interrupted by William that was a price for married life she was more than willing to pay.

"There is a child present, you know," William groaned, but there was also a hint of a smile in his eyes, lit up the way that Oliver's so often were when he was laughing on the inside and trying to pretend he wasn't.

"Hey, buddy," Oliver said, matching his son almost-smile for almost-smile.  "Felicity wanted to ask you something."  And looked at her expectantly.

Wait, what?  Felicity froze for a second in confusion.

"Felicity?" Oliver prompted, and it was the opposite of the way he said it so often, the way that meant  _please stop talking_ , and that made her laugh and catch her breath.  She could do this, she could talk to her stepson.  That seemed pretty basic, as far as parenting went, not that she would know because her mother wouldn't shut up and usually talked over her while her father had said nothing at all and just left--

"Will," Felicity said, bringing her careening thoughts to a halt.  "I was thinking about the holidays." 

( _It's fine_ , she told herself, she could look it up later, that whole talking-to-your-kids thing.)

Just for a second, before he could catch it -- because at least he didn’t have his father’s skill at that, not yet, anyway -- William’s face fell.  “Oh?” was all he said.

“Yeah,” Felicity said.  “I was just telling your dad that this is the first time in a long time I get to celebrate Chanukah with my family.  It’s not a big holiday, you see, it’s just a chance to be together and light candles and eat a lot of fried, yummy foods, and I was just hoping...you would be interested in celebrating with me?”

“Are there presents?”  William smiled, and so did Felicity.  At least the kid was still enough of a kid to go straight for the present angle.

“Um...there’s chocolate?” Felicity said, and laughed when Oliver elbowed her in her side.  “And presents, of course there’s presents, William.”

“Can we decorate?”

Felicity didn’t even need to look at Oliver to know that if William wanted to glitter bomb the entire apartment it would be fine with him.  “Definitely,” she said.

“Okay,” William said shyly.  “I guess that’s okay then.”

\--

William insisted that Oliver make latkes.

"Dad," he said, "It's traditional.  There was this thing, with a temple, and oil..."

Oliver gave Felicity an exaggerated eye roll and pointed a spatula accusingly at her.  “Do you see what you started?”  But he expertly flipped a potato pancake with a light-hearted grin on his face and Felicity took in the scene surrounding them.   

Once faced with the rows upon rows of endless Christmas decorations, William had found a bit of Christmas spirit, and the ultimate balance in the apartment was hovering around 50/50.  The menorah Felicity had made in grade school had pride of place on the mantle, surrounded by stacks of Chanukah _gelt_ candy that was so sweet Oliver couldn’t even pretend to eat it; there was a partially-decorated tree taking up most of their view of Star City’s skyline

“Smaller than the last tree we had,” Felicity commented to her husband, and he just smiled mysteriously.

“Yeah,” he said, and something in the pitch of his voice, quiet and higher than usual, sounded very happy about it.

“Oh my goodness,” Felicity breathed.  “Does it get any more domestic than this?”

Oliver pulled her close to him, Felicity twisting to avoid the spatula.  His arms wrapped around her, one around her back, the other cradling her neck, his head resting on top of hers -- an Oliver Queen full-body hug, spatula and all.

“Felicity,” Oliver said, every syllable dripping with sincerity, “I really, really hope it does."

"Guys," William interrupted, "I want to light the candles now, please?"

 

 

_**iii.  don't let the light go out** _

 

Christmas lunch was at Thea’s.

Oliver took over the kitchen and made, like, five kinds of side dishes and Quentin made chicken cacciatore and John and Lyla brought dessert and Felicity brought libations -- vodka, bourbon, wine, club soda -- because no one would let her anywhere near the kitchen, and that was really fine because it was so much nicer in front of the fireplace.  Thea had lit up all of the candles, and she was sitting with John Jr and William and examining their presents.

William was particularly taken with a Nerf arrow set Thea had presented to him, and Felicity foresaw a lot of property damage in her future, especially when Thea insisted that she would teach William how to start using it right then and there and the lesson got cut short when the first glass broke.

“Ollie,” Thea groaned while her brother grinned, “I promise you this is not like using the real thing.”

Following a raucous competition over candy canes (“Watch out for Aunt Thea, she cheats!”) William settled in on the floor with a book Felicity had bought for him and good-naturedly let JJ drive his new trains all over the place, complete with _vroom-vroom_ noises and the utilization of William’s legs as a bridge.  Felicity in her turn settled in next to her sister-in-law and handed over a glass of wine.  For a few minutes, they just sat there -- taking in the sounds of contentment from the kitchen, watching the kids play, accidentally eavesdropping on Quentin speaking to Donna on the phone (wait, _what?_ ) -- and Thea offered a toast.

“To you and Ollie,” she said softly.  “Happily-ever-after, love-conquers-all, and all of that shit.”  The words were harsh and typically Thea but the tone was sincere (and also typically Thea) so Felicity clinked her glass and did not think about how nothing had been conquered because there was still Cayden James and google knew who else out there--

“Thanks, sis,” was all she said in reply, taking a sip, and then prodding a little bit because it’s what Thea would have done.  “And you?”

It might as well have been a cue.  The phone tucked inside Thea’s sleeve buzzed and Thea smiled sadly and Felicity discreetly slid off the couch to play with JJ in an attempt to give Thea some privacy without drawing attention to the phone call, especially not wanting Oliver to notice, mostly managing not to hear anything that was muttered or whispered while she and JJ drove the trains under the bridge of her stepson’s legs while William just kept reading _The Hobbit_ until --

“I love you too,” Thea sighed, hung up the phone.  (And if there was just the faintest undertone of crying Felicity wasn’t going to notice unless Thea said anything to her about it.)

(Or not.)

“You know I told Roy not to come to the reception,” Felicity lied, because it had been Oliver but even still, she had agreed that it wouldn’t be safe.

“Liar,” Thea said, managing a smirk.

Felicity shrugged, pulling herself back onto the couch.  “I know--”

“Felicity,” Thea sighed, “I love you, but you don’t know.  You and Ollie being apart was a nightmare -- for all of us -- but it was your choice and what you needed and distance and healing and whatever other crap that finally let you guys get your shit together and put us all out of our misery.”

Felicity put her hand on top of Thea’s, and Thea let her, so there was that as Thea continued in her onslaught:  “I love Roy. I haven’t been whole since he left. We are not apart because it is what we need or what is best for us.  We are apart because he is a fugitive and…”

“He came to visit, you know,” Felicity offered into the air of Thea’s pregnant pause.  “While you were --”

“I know,” Thea whispered.  She was dabbing her eyes, now, and Lyla noticed as she walked over to tell them that lunch was ready, pulling her son off the floor and putting a hand on Thea’s shoulder.

“We all still miss him,” Lyla said quietly, and it was true; Felicity knew there was a non-trivial part of Oliver that still hadn’t forgiven himself for letting Roy go in the first place.

 _“It was my penance, Felicity, not his,”_ Oliver would insist.   _“My price to pay.”_

“I know,” Thea replied, but her voice was stronger now and she had forced a smile onto her face that almost looked real. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "the best chrismukkah ever" = the O.C., 1x13  
> (irony)
> 
> "it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness" - _The Supreme Conquest and Other Sermons Preached in America_ by William L. Watkinson.
> 
>  
> 
> "light one candle"
> 
> light one candle for all we believe in  
> that anger not tear us apart  
> and light one candle to find us together  
> with peace as the song in our hearts  
> don't let the light go out!
> 
> \-- peter, paul and mary


End file.
